


We Carry on II - In pursuit

by SSJandTechno



Series: We Carry On [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Cassandra de Rolo Needs a Hug, Displacement, F/M, Grey Hunt, Percy is a pile of issues in a nice coat, These people are never going to be normal, Vex is just grieving, if that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:22:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28087656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SSJandTechno/pseuds/SSJandTechno
Summary: After episode 115 of Campaign 1, the survivors of Vox Machina have lives ahead of them. But all of them, and Cassandra, will carry the scars of their experiences until their final breaths. This is a story of the surviving de Rolos, old and new, trying to live on.Vex takes the Grey Hunt out after harpies. Yennen's intentions are good, his execution isn't. Cass and Percy, it seems, define their duties to Whitestone slightly differently.Read the first one first, if you can be bothered. This one more or less makes sense on its own, but makes more sense as a sequel.
Relationships: Cassandra de Rolo & Percival "Percy" Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III, Percival "Percy" Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III/Vex'ahlia
Series: We Carry On [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2020607
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	1. Chapter 1

Vex notched an arrow to Fenthras. Nine hunters around her did the same. They would not fire until she did. That had been discussed before they’d all stuffed their ears with wool. They were backed in to a crevice of rock on The Salted Bluffs, Hallucinatory Terrain cast over the entrance. A little beyond the border of the illusion were two hobbled sheep; skeletal, wretched old ewes that Vex had bought yesterday morning for the princely sum of two copper each. Both the animals were struggling and puffing against their bonds. Vex had seen the shadow pass overhead. Their wait was nearly over. The Harpies were coming. 

One landed. Vex twitched, but didn’t fire. The Harpy took off again before it had even touched the beasts. They were wary. They were clever enough to fear a trap. Another landed. It poked one of the sheep, then jumped in to the air again. Still Vex held her breath. Two more poked at the sheep and jumped away. They were hovering close now, calling to each other. Still Vex held her breath. The one grabbed one of the animals by the head.   
Vex released her arrow. 

The one holding the sheep contorted, falling backwards. Even in the second that it fell, Vex saw bright, bubbling blood starting to come from its mouth. Vex heard muffled shrieks from ahead of her as the rest of the first volley flew. She reloaded and shot again. The second wasn’t quite as good. The one she’d hit dropped down, wounded, but wasn’t dead. She started to hear the hallmark of the Harpies, even through the wool. The song that was in some way Fey, that called something deep within Vex as though it called her homeward. She’d never been at home among the Fey. They’d treated her and Vax like dirt. Vex bit her tongue and shot one of the Harpies through the mouth. It was a lie and a false promise. Vex felt a tug on her ankle. The hunter next to her had gone slack jawed and was shambling towards the Harpies as they took skywards. Vex reached forward and slapped him. This was why they were tied ankle to ankle. The other hunter stopped and shook his head. He raised a hand to where she’d struck him. 

They’d realised. They’d realised there was an illusion, even if they couldn’t see through it. A stone came crashing through the illusion and hit the cliff a foot over Vex’s head. Vex got another arrow away before two Harpies came sweeping through the illusion. She hit one as it came in, not a lethal shot, but it hampered it enough that Alf, one of the younger boys, managed to get his spear in to it properly as it went for him. She could feel rather than hear her hunters yelling. She backed as far up against the cliff as she could and reached for her necklace.   
Trinket appeared ten feet in front of her. He looked about. She had told him in advance what it would mean if she summoned him. He reared up and bit for a Harpy as it flew over. It might have been strong enough to lift a human. It was not strong enough to lift a bear. 

Dead and dying harpies were piling up on the ground around them. One slid down the wall almost on top of Vex and tried to pull her to the ground. She screamed, knowing no one could hear her, and went for her daggers, feeling claws raking across her armour. Then it was gone, someone had pulled the Harpy off and stabbed it. Vex straightened up and looked around. She couldn’t feel the tendrils of song in her mind any more. She couldn’t see their wings, or their shadows. She surveyed her hunters. All standing, one of them, Cherry, doubled over and bleeding. Vex started over to her, tugging at the two men she was tied to. That had been part of the plan to thwart the Harpies; if they were tied in a long line, they couldn’t be picked up and dropped off the cliff. 

Cherry straightened and showed Vex the raked wounds in her side when she realised what was happening. Fortunately Vex didn’t need to be able to hear herself to cast. A couple of others were nursing minor wounds; scratched faces or hands from the Harpies’ claws, but nothing else looked awful. Vex looked about again, then tentatively removed the wool from one ear. That had been the other part of the plan to thwart the Harpies. The song was possibly the most dangerous thing about them, but it didn’t work if you couldn’t hear it. She heard nothing, only the distant cries of gulls. She pulled the wool from the other ear. The rest of the hunters were looking at her. She nodded. One by one, The Grey Hunt took the wool from their ears. 

“Good job.” Vex said, once they’d all finished. “Good job for our first effort at that. All we lost were the sheep. Let’s start gathering heads.”  
Always a grim job, but Percy had pointed out that trophies would improve her clout, as Grandmistress of The Grey Hunt, at council meetings. And he was probably right.   
Sixteen heads, all in. A few of the bodies had trees growing out of them. It would cripple this nest for the year, possibly longer, but it was one nest of dozens along this coastline. They ought to seek out the next nest along and attack that in a week or so. Whitestone’s natural resources could support a far bigger population than they ever had, but with the influx of refugees from the Chroma Conclave, things might need to change. There might need to be more than one fishing port. Which would require Harpy control. 

It took them hours to trek on foot back to where they’d left the horses. Part of Vex missed Keyleth and her Wind-Walk spell bitterly, part of her enjoyed the physical challenge of scrambling up and down sheer rock faces. It stopped her from thinking too hard about anything else. 

The horses and the two hunters they’d left behind were, thankfully, exactly where they’d left them.   
“Any trouble?” Vex asked as they approached.  
“Nothing worse than a bear to scare off, m’lady. We did wish you’d left us yours.”  
Vex smiled. “We won’t make Whitestone tonight, but let’s see how far we can get.”  
She let Trinket amble alongside the horses when they weren’t galloping. When they ran flat out, she took him in to the necklace. Even when the rest of the hunt galloped, she kept up on her broom. 

Darkness fell before they were very close to Whitestone. Alone, Vex would have taken to the top of the tree canopy and kept flying, trusting to her elf’s eyes to keep her seeing and her skill to keep her unseen. But it wasn’t safe with a group this big. They stopped, made camp, watched in shifts, just as Vox Machina had done in the early years. The heads of the Harpies were starting to show age by the morning. 

As soon as there was enough light, they made off again, Vex fancied she could smell Whitestone’s smoke on the winds. They were within dashing distance. They forwent a proper breakfast for the hope of a tavern meal by mid-morning.


	2. Chapter 2

Before the sun had fully crested the mountains, ten tired hunters on nine tired horses sighted Castle Whitestone through the trees. A couple of hunters cheered. Vex dropped Trinket out of the necklace, there was no need to run now, and he liked to carry her. The gate guards offered no challenge. They turned in place and began to cry  
“The Grey Hunt returns!” Vex heard the cry echoing deeper in to the city. People who weren’t in a hurry turned to look at them, some to follow, craning their necks to see what The Grey Hunt had killed. Vex saw some staring open-mouthed at the near-human faces of the Harpies.

The Hunt filed in silence towards their station, little more than a stable and a store, but the side of one wall was mounted with hooks. Vex pulled a Harpy head from Cherry’s saddle and stood on Trinket’s back to tie it to the hooks by the hair. A small crowd had assembled to watch. This sort of display was unusual now, and tightly regulated. No humanoid could be hung dead within Whitestone’s walls, on penalty of a twenty gold fine and thirty lashes, death if you hung a body from the Sun Tree. There had been total unanimity on that part of the law. Cass had got it through the council at about the time Terry had fixed Percy’s glasses. When the last head was hung, Vex drew a letter of exemption from Cassandra from inside her armour and tacked it to the wall, Alf scrawled ‘Harpies’ in chalk beneath the heads. Vex glanced over her shoulder. She should address that many people, probably. That would be noble behaviour. She turned in place on Trinket’s back.  
“These creatures are Harpies.” That’d do for a start. “They nest in the eyries of the Salted Bluffs and carry off whatever they can lift as food. As long as they live there, we cannot trade along that road, we cannot mine in those hills, we cannot fish in those waters. So we wage war. We will make a way.” They started clapping. Much to Vex’s surprise, they were clapping her. Should she carry on? She didn’t know what more there was to say. Keeper Yennen was passing at the end of the street and had paused to listen. She didn’t know of anything in particular they should have to say to each other. She turned back to her hunters. “Tend to your mounts and yourselves. We meet again in the Castle Library at midday tomorrow, and eat at my expense.”

The hunters began to disperse. Vex lowered herself back on to Trinket’s body as he set off homewards. She needed a bath. 

Keeper Yennen was still there. He was seeking her eyes. She looked at him. It would be a snub not to.  
“Lady Vex’ahlia.”  
“Keeper Yennen.”  
“Congratulations, that looks to have been a dangerous hunt.”  
Vex smiled. “Once you’ve brought down dragons, Harpies aren’t so daunting.”  
“Will you walk with me a while?”

Vex hesitated. She could convince herself he didn’t mean her harm, but there was something he wanted. She was a noblewoman now. Most of her interactions were because somebody wanted something from her, and Yennen was generally a good ally to the family. “Very well.” She slid down from Trinket’s back to land beside Yennen. 

He started with being very civil, very interested in the hunt. He asked her to explain in detail her technique and the rationale behind it, whether it had come off as she’d expected, and whether she’d try the same method again. By the time they came to pass the temple to Erasthis, she felt Yennen could have written her account of the hunt for her, yet she felt that this wasn’t his intention.  
“May I offer you tea, my lady?”  
Vex hesitated. The buildup was making her nervous, but she’d probably cause offence by refusing now. “Thank you. I don’t think I have time for more than one cup, but thank you. Trinket, wait here.”

Vex followed Yennen through the main portion of the temple, drawing a few surprised looks as she did – it was widely known she worshiped Pelor. He led her through a small door in to what must have been his private study. A fire was glowing in the grate, a kettle was sitting above, slightly too far out to boil, but it probably kept warm very well. Yes, that rung below would be to boil it, then it was moved up to keep near a boil for an hour or two. Percy would approve. Yennen picked up the kettle with a cloth and poured it in to a pot. He indicated a chair to her before he sat down himself. 

“First of all, Lady Vex’ahlia, I wanted to thank you for all you’ve done in the service of Whitestone.” Vex drew a breath to hold him off, to say that if this was about Briarwoods, or even Dragons, that thanks had been given, but Yennen kept talking. “You have shouldered the mantle of the de Rolos as though you had always been one. You take to your responsibilities as well as Percy and Cassandra, though all three of you have suffered much for your years, and all of you have borne it with patience and grace I would not expect from those twice your age.” He poured two cups of tea. Habit and having a thief for a brother made Vex not touch hers until Yennen did. “I no longer rue that these days are mine. I am living to see my people reborn.” He took a sip of tea. Habit made Vex check that he wasn’t just wetting his lips. “I also want to thank you for your presence in The Castle as a devotee of Pelor. Cassandra is in my keeping, you know Percival doesn’t lean naturally to such things, it’s important that the town’s headship isn’t purely for Pelor or Erathis. It stops the townspeople of either type from feeling like the under class. You hold Cassandra in balance.”  
“It wasn’t a choice for the sake of…” Vex said. “It was Percy’s doing, if anything. He set me towards The Grey Hunt, all else followed from there.” She took another mouthful of tea. Now that Yennen was clearly drinking his, she felt she had an interest in drinking quickly. She wasn’t comfortable. She couldn’t have explained why, not even to Vax, but she felt a need to be able to leave.   
“Have you not observed that the gods can use the actions of those who are not pledged to them to achieve their ends? Pelor chose you before you became his champion. I have no doubt of that.” He took a long slow breath. “But I also understand very well how, when you have a station, an elevated station, within a group like the management of a temple, that very station can make it difficult to ask for help. I want you to know that part of my calling as a priest of Erathis is to support and pray for the ruling family constantly and in any way I can. Any champion of Pelor is welcome in this temple, now and for ever.”   
Vex drew breath slowly. “Thank you.” At the moment, she couldn’t imagine what service she might need from Yennen, but it was a useful offer to have.   
“You are, and will always be, welcome. The abilities of the servants of Erathis extend beyond what you might imagine. And if…” He hesitated, as though wondering if he should continue. “You and Percival have been married for the better part of a year now. If that is starting to worry you…”  
Vex felt herself stiffen. “That is a choice.” Yennen looked taken aback. “Consider what I was doing not three months ago. Chasing after an ascendant lich with a child within… I died, Yennen. Did you know that?” Yennen said nothing. He clearly realised he’d offended her. “I’ll thank you not to-” Vex stopped herself, biting off the end of the sentence: ‘to meddle in my affairs when you don’t understand them’. She’d done enough, he knew he’d offended her, and she was a noblewoman now. She didn’t need to throw her weight around, and she could cause a lot of damage by doing so. She downed her tea in one gulp. “I take my leave.” She said, from a scalded throat, as she stood up. She turned her back and walked out before Yennen could say anything else. 

“Trinket.” He read her very well at this point. He offered her his back and started running homewards as soon as she was off the ground. 

Yennen had no right. Yes, Whitestone depended upon Percy and Cassandra to provide the next generation of rulers, she understood that. But with the curse of The Raven Queen over their heads, and no idea what that might mean, then what it had meant… Yennen knew nothing.   
Had she overstepped the mark though? Had she the right to react in that way to a question like that? Had she just made life really difficult for herself, or Cassandra, by breaking off hostilities?

Percy would know. And he’d come to find her pretty quickly.   
“Under the shadow of the hill!” A guard called from above.  
“Seek for the lily!” Vex called back, almost without thinking. The portcullis didn’t drop. The standard challenge.   
Servants and guards began to call out welcomes to her, she ordered a bath to be drawn for herself, and asked that Alice be found, and sent someone to fetch food for Trinket. He’d had very little on the hunt.


	3. Chapter 3

Vex got to the bath five minutes later to find it half filled, and Alice there ahead of her. She stripped, handed her dirty things to Alice, then started to scrub the blood of the fight and the grime of travel off her skin. She was becoming accustomed to the sight of herself clean. A year ago or two, being filthy for days, or even weeks, at a time wouldn’t have troubled her. She smiled to herself. She was going soft, turning in to a proper noble. Or she was supposed to be. She glanced down herself, at the little silver ring at her navel, set with a chip of blue stone. Her Erathis Ring. It had meant four days without food to afford it, when she and Vax had been scraping along the edge of existence, years ago. But strengthening desire for a young stablehand, and the knowledge that she might not always have a choice, had made it feel like a sensible sacrifice. It had protected her from her mother’s fate, from raising children on the edge of starvation, alone and a pariah. 

The door opened. Vex jumped. Alice came in, with her arms full of towels and clean clothes.   
“Wasn’t sure if you wanted hose or a gown, m’lady.”  
“What have you brought me?” Vex asked, clambering out of the bath.  
“Both, if it please you madam.”  
“I hadn’t given it any thought. Gown, I suppose.”

Vex was dry and half dressed before the door opened again. She started, reaching for a knife that wasn’t there, but the lack of any warning should have told her. Percy. Sleeves rolled up, ash on his face, sweat still shining on him in places, he strode in.  
“Vex.”  
“You took your time.”  
“Nobody told me you were back, I was in the forge.”  
“I can tell.” Vex stretched her neck up to kiss him as he reached her. “Thank you, Alice.” Alice knew that for her cue to get out, and did.  
“How was the hunt?”  
“Good. Sixteen harpies confirmed dead, possibly more fell off the cliff or will die of their wounds, no casualties.”  
“And the song wasn’t a problem?”  
“Between the wool and tying people together, no. It all came off… as I would have wanted, more or less.” He was a tactician, after all. He wanted the account from her in as much detail as she could remember. He might some day have time to ride out with her. He might be loud and unsubtle, but he could shoot faster than any of her hunters, and tended to bring things down quickly.   
“And Cass did give you an exemption to hang the heads, didn’t she?”  
“Before we left.”  
“Good. Have you planned your next one yet?”  
“No, that’s for tomorrow.”  
“But have you decided?”  
“No.” He tilted his head at her. After a hunt, she usually spent her bath plotting what she might hunt next, and he knew that. “Truth be told…” She tailed off. She didn’t need to drag him in to what had happened between her and Yennen. Or maybe she did. He’d know if she’d done damage, at least. He was waiting for her to say more. “Actually, there is something I wanted to ask you about.” He waited. “Yennen came and caught me after the hunt.” Percy frowned slightly. “He started off being… very civil, almost too civil, he thanked me for my service to Whitestone, told me that he was ever at my service and… and asked if it bothered me that I’m not… that we haven’t...”  
Percy gave what could only have been an exasperated sigh.  
“I… didn’t react with much grace. I was taken aback and-”  
He raised a hand to his forehead. “That wasn’t directed at you, Vex.”  
“Have I messed up?”  
“What? No. No, this isn’t about you. Anyway, Yennen’ll take a reprimand from a de Rolo on the chin, and never bring the subject up with you again, if I know him. I know what this is about, I’ll deal with it.” He turned and walked out.


	4. Chapter 4

“Cass!” Percy strode down the upper corridor towards his sister’s study, past a pair of servants carrying a trunk. “Cass!” Something in his look clearly unsettled the servants.  
“Percival?” He heard Cass’s voice from inside her study, with the tone of one refusing to be drawn. He crossed the threshold and found himself facing Trish. Cass was sitting at her desk, writing, her back to him. “I’m busy, I hope it’s important.”  
Percy looked quickly about the room. As he did, another servant came in to pick up another box. “Out.” He said, to that servant and to Trish. The housemaid went, Trish hesitated.  
“It’s fine, Trish.” Cass said, without looking up. “No imposter would be that rude.” Trish backed out, not taking her eyes of Percy. Percy shut the door behind her.  
“What scheme of Asmodeus are you playing at, Cass?”  
She glanced up at him from under her brows. “Excuse me?” She was doing what she did when she was shouted at as Guardian of Woven Stone. At this moment, though, she wasn’t The Guardian of Woven Stone. She was his little sister, and she was being a pain.  
“If you have a problem, you take it up with me, you don’t set minions on me, and you certainly don’t set minions on Vex.”  
“What are you accusing me of?”  
He circled the desk to face her more directly. “Archibald yesterday, Yennen today. It’s not acceptable.”  
She looked up at him. “Percival, they’re both grown men with their own minds to make decisions.” She was not as good a liar as she thought she was.   
“And you have right of life and death over both of them, and both of them have sworn fealty to you. Archibald started pontificating about how depressingly quiet The Castle is during a conversation about infrastructure, and how vulnerable he still feels the line is, and Yennen cornered Vex after a hunt and asked offered to help her because she was proving barren.”  
“Will you say either of them was wrong?”  
“Do you admit it, then?”  
“Will you say either of them was wrong?”  
“Cass!”  
“Fine. What does it change? Will you say either of them was wrong?”  
Percy made himself stop. He drew a breath slowly. “All three of us are young yet.”  
“So was Vax’ildan. And Julius. And Vesper, and Oliver, and Whitney, and Ludwig. You and I have both been dead. Do you honestly feel that the line is safe?”  
“I don’t know that I’ll ever feel totally safe, Cass, and I doubt you will either. We’ve both seen too much. But times are different now. The dragons are gone, Vecna is gone. I think I can believe it’s over.”  
“You thought that after the dragons, Percival. Then you found Delilah in another Ziggurat. You cannot know that the storm will never come again.” Percy faltered. Cass kept going. “You and Vex will run to danger. I don’t think anything will stop you doing that, but you need to leave an heir behind.”  
“She’s been through a lot in the past few months, Cass.”  
“She can hand the child off to a wet nurse as soon as it’s born if she doesn’t want it, and go back to riding with the hunt.” Percy paused, trying to think of a way to articulate to Cassandra how wrong it would feel to Vex to bear a child she had no intention of rearing. Because it wasn’t wrong to Cassandra. Vex had been raised by a lone pariah of a mother, he and Cass had been raised by a whole castle. Vex couldn’t imagine a child being reared away from its mother because her mother had been all she had, therefore it wasn’t fair to ask Vex to bear until she was ready to mother, and mother in the way she understood the word. But none of this would make sense to Cass. “Anyway, you’re abreast of what I’ve put in place for while I’m away?”  
Percy blinked. To back away from the argument now felt like conceding defeat, but he didn’t see how he could win from this position. Maybe it was wiser to retreat and try again another day, when he’d had some time to think about how to argue the point. “Nobody can pass a death sentence, bring everything that needs you in house so that you can just get on when you get back, we shouldn’t miss a council meeting, but if we do because you’re delayed, tough. Yes?”  
“And Yennen is stepping up as-”  
“And Yennen is stepping up as a Lesser Judge to take some strain off Atherton.” Cassandra was going to Turst Fields in the morning, to tidy up, and hopefully sign, the trade agreement with the Hanserrens. “Are you comfortable with your bits?”  
Cass nodded. “It’s like any negotiation, just be stubborn on the numbers unless there’s a valid reason not to be. Doing it this way stops them fleecing us, even if it makes us a bit more vulnerable to bad grain years.” She rolled her shoulders and looked away. “The last letter I had from them was from Bedevere Hanserren, not Dagonet.” Percy tilted his head at her. “One of the younger sons. They’ve got a few to marry off. It might make them soften their position a bit.”  
“Cass-”  
“I don’t have to follow through with it if-”  
“Follow through with what, exactly?”  
“Bedevere Hanserren, or whichever one they shove under my nose. I suppose it doesn’t really matter which.”  
“Cass, have you even met the man?”  
“No, I assume I made an impression on his brother. It might make good sense if they become a major food source, having an inside man would help us with bad grain years.”  
“I can’t believe I’m hearing you say that. You’re-”  
“I’m older than Mother was. I’m quite the prize just now; one of only two heirs to an estate this large.”  
There was a brief silence. “Does it occur to you that your value drops as soon as Vex is known to be pregnant?” Percy asked softly.  
“I’d still be much more valuable than I have any right to be.” There was no need to spell that out. The youngest child of seven would be married off very cheaply, or left to marry for love.   
Percy sighed. “Just…” Half a lifetime ago, this wouldn’t have bothered him. But somehow discussing his sister’s marriage value felt wrong. Was it his job to broker for her? Her only living blood relative? Nessus, it probably was. “Just don’t do anything you’ll regret, Cass. Don’t make anybody any promises.”  
She stood up and started gathering papers. “Well, one of us had better marry for pragmatism.”  
“What’s that supposed to mean?”  
“Nothing. But fundamentally marriage has two functions, and as it stands I’m going to end up doing both.” She closed the folio and walked out of her study. “Erin? Erin, where are you?”

Percy took a step towards chasing her, then thought better of it. He’d done horribly in this conversation. He might do better to let her go, let her settle, and hope he could talk some sense in to her when she came back from Turst. She had far too much sense to make anybody any promises on first meeting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So guess who got exposed to COVID yesterday?
> 
> This might result in very rapid updates because I've got naff all else to do (I really CAN'T do my job from home), or no updates at all while I cough my guts up


End file.
